Fighting Thailand's child sexual exploitation trade

From Daughters Education Program of CAPCAT. 10 January, 1997

At an age when we would regard them as still
being children, over a thousand young girls from
northern Thailand are being lured every year into
prostitution. Girls as young as 10 are being sold
to the brothels of Bangkok, other Thai cities and
overseas. In some places as many as 90
percent of girls have left their village to work.

They come from families in the "Golden
Triangle" area trapped in a cycle of poverty
and debt. Their parents are subsistence
farmers or landless villagers with few work
opportunities, and their traditional lifestyle and
values are being constantly eroded by the influx
of consumer goods.

Faced with these pressures parents come to
view their daughters as commodities that
can be traded. Brothel owners have networks of
agents combing the villages seeking out
troubled families with daughters, who move in
with tempting offers of money. So begins a
cycle in which relatives, village headmen,
police, government officials and business
people all benefit from the girl's labour.

Once sold or coerced, the girls find it
difficult to escape prostitution and the reality
is usually very different from what they have
been promised. Many believe they are going to
work as housemaids, in beauty salons, bars or
in other fields of entertainment but instead
find themselves imprisoned in damp, dirty,
over-crowded conditions. These children are
often abused by clients or pimps and face the
ever present danger of contracting HIV, which
is epidemic in Thailand.

The Daughters Education Programme was
begun in 1989 by its present director Sompop
Jantraka. It was conceived as a community-based
initiative aimed at preventing girls
being forced into the sex industry .

Today, this programme has become
Development and Education Programme for
Daughters and Communities, assisting 400
girls and their families. Its headquarters
are in Mae Sai, the northernmost town in
Thailand, with other centres spread across
Chiang Rai. From these bases staff work
among Akha and other hill tribe groups and
lowland villages.

DEPDC offers young women from eight
to 18 years old an alternative to prostitution
by providing them with education, job
training and help in finding work. It
considers education and training to be the
key to providing opportunities and allowing
these girls to reach their full potential.

DEPDC currently runs various programs
supporting, educating and empowering young
women and their communities against the
tragedy of child prostitution and risks of
HIV infection. DEPDC operates on the belief
that through the financial and moral support
of young women to remain in school or to be
trained for alternative employment the
material and spiritual quality of their lives
and of their communities can be improved.

Grass roots activity like this is the
only way children trafficking can be stopped
in Thailand. Forced child labour and the
socio-economic problems of the "have- nots"
of our world are problems for all nations to
act on.

At DEPDC we urge all people around the
world to aid the empowerment of those
vulnerable to exploitation.

DEPDC PROJECTS AND
FUNDING SOURCES - 1996

The Development and Education Ptogramme
for daughters and Communities is currently
conducting the following projects. All
projects are aimed at preventing children and
young women from being coerced into the
child sex trade.

DAUGHTER'S EDUCATION PROGRAMME

Support of 300 girls to attend primary and
secondary school in six districts of Chiang Rai
province. All have been identified as veing at
risk of entering prostitution or enfored child
labour. Most live at home but attend extra-
curricular activities at the DEP Centres.
Approximately 70 live at the centres,mostly
from the Akha hill tribe. (Funded by: individual
donations, Asian Children's Fund, UNICEF,
IYF/NCYD, Danida, TACAP.)

YOUTH LEADERSHIP TRAINING

Support of 24 girls who have already left
school to continue their education through
the non-formal education system. At the
same time they participate in personal and
leadship development activeties and work
experience with a view that they will be
future community leaders. (Funded by:
UNICEF.)

MEDIA & INFORMATION ACTION CENTRE

Disseminates information about problems
which affect children in the north, through
girls doing their own research and producing
a newspaper, puppet shows and other forms
of media. (Funded by: International Labour
Organisation).

COOPERATIVE SHOP

A small restaurant and supplies store at
the Mae Sai centre, providing staff and
"daughters" with vegetarian food and other
supplies. Operated by members of the Youth
Leadership Program. (Funded by: IYF/NCYD.)

JOB SKILLS TRAINING CENTRE

Conduct of vocational training in sewing,
weaving, computer operating and typing for over
100 girls most of whom also study non-formal
school on the week-ends. (Funded by:
International Labour Organisation (ILO-IPEC).)

EDUCATION & DEVELOPMENT
PROGRAM FOR PATAK CHILDREN

Day care and instruction in basic literacy
for children from very poor and troubled families
who have difficulty enrolling in the formal
education system. (Funded by: IYF/NCYD.)

FOLLOW-UP, RESCUE &
REHABILITATION PROGRAMME

Monitoring of past "daughters'" welfare and
regular contact and support when required.
Includes advocacy and intervention services.
(Funded by: UNICEF.)

STREET EDUCATION
& HEALTH PROGRAM

A new venture in 1996; Takes basic mobile
education to the children begging in the streets
of Mae Sai. Teaches literacy, basic mathematics
and health and hygiene.

ORIGINS

The present founder and director of the
Development and Education Programme for
Daughters and Communities, Mr. Sompop Jantraka
originally comes from southern Thailand and
graduated from Chiang Mai University in 1984.
His background includes being a musician with
a popular rock band, a flute maker, music teacher
in a community school and a tour guide with an
alternative tour organisation. In 1989 he was
funded to conduct research into the economic
situation of the north o Thailand. His last
project involved the study of child prostitution
and the sale of daughters from poor communities
in Chiang Rai province.

THE PROBLEMS

For the previous 10 to 20 years the Thai sex
industry had been developing into a highly
lucrative commercial industry. This gave rise
to the debt-bondage deals and systematic
exploitation of poor families with available
daughters. The demand for child prostitutes
grew as AIDS became more threatening and
people believed younger girls would be safer.
The belief that sex with a child is rejuvenating
and the publicity of Thailand as a sex- tour
destination for paedophiles and all clients
contributed to the thriving trade in young girls.

The findings of this research included:
While the Thai economy had rural families
suffer because they are landless and/or in debt
to money lenders. In an effort to deal with
this situation men go away to the cities to
look for casual work. Often they do not return,
leaving their wives to bring up their families
single handed.

Brothel owners in Chiang Mai and the South
of Thailand have well-established networks of
agents in the north. These agents systematically
target families who are undergoing economic
hardship and try to convince them to sell their
daughters for much needed cash.

The introduction of consumer goods, and the
need to have money to buy these goods, has
fostered an attitude that the sale of young
girls to brothers agents is an acceptable form
of income.

In some villages in northern Thailand up to
60 to 70 percent of young girls, aged from 11
years up, have entered prostitution. While
many had been sold by their parents, others
had been introduced to the sex industry
through an older sibling or relative. In some
cases young unskilled girls drift into
prostitution. They move from their villages
to larger towns looking for employment.
From there they migrate to cities such
Chaing Rai, Chaing Mai or southward to
Bangkok. In these cities their options are
limited and they are likely to end up working
in poorly paid jobs with substandard
conditions such as factories or restaurants.
These workplaces often have links to the
sex industry.

Local leaders, including some village
headman, police and government officials
are involved in the recruitment and
transportation of girls from the area,
to work in the sex industry throughout
Thailand. Protection provided for brothels
in the Mae Sai area for agents moving
girls to the South. Assistance is given in
matters such as establishment of an
apparently legitimate business as a
disguise for a brother. Documentation
is arranged which will allow young girls,
without the necessary legal papers, to
travel around the country.

Mae Sai is located on the Burmese
border where drugs such as opium and
heroin are cheap and freely available.
Many parents and young people are
addicted, especially among the Akha hill
tribe. Parents who are drug addicts may
have been arrested and jailed, leaving
their children to fend for themselves.
Those adults provide poor role models
and may even encourage their children to
commence drinking alcohol, sniffing glue
or using other drugs before they reach
ten years of age. Many intra-venous drug
users share needles with the attendant
risks of the spread of AIDS.

Many children along the border do not
have birth certificates or family
documents or have lost the document.
Their parents have migrated from Burma,
Laos or China within the last fifteen
years. Girls who do not have these
document have difficulty enrolling at
school and then obtaining Education
Certificates of their academic record.
Without this Certificate girls cannot
obtain legal employment. They are
therefore easy prey for brothel owners
and employers with unsafe working
conditions. Faced with exploitation they
are unable to complain to the police
because of their illegal status.

THE RESPONSE

Seeing for his own eyes the plight of
young girls about to join the sex industry
in Bangkok or other cities, Sompop
Jantraka requested support from Michiho
Inagaki, the Japanese journalist who had
funded previous research. With some
financial backing and a conviction that
keeping these children in the education
system would provide better future
opportunities, he established the
Daughters Education Programme in 1989,
starting with 19 girls from the Mae Sai
district.

CHIANG RAI TODAY

Seven years after Mr. Jantraka took
decisive action to prevent the
exploitation of Chiang Rai's children,
the sale of children into the sex industry
continues. Brother agents still scour
villages for vulnerable families, big
cities and western culture are
glamourised as poverty increase and
perspective change.

The crime of selling a child attracts
heavier penalties now but the complexity
of the corruption remains a major
obstruction to justice. Children as young
as 11 are available in local brothels,
HIV infection is assessed at around 10
percent of the general community and
many children are under constant threat
of abuse and exploitation.

THE PROGRAMME

Today, this programme has become
Development and Education Programme for
Daughters and Communities, supporting
almost 450 girls to remain in education
or vocation training in Mae Sai, the
northernmost town in Thailand, with other
centres spread across Chiang Rai province.
From these bases staff work among Akha
and other hill tribe groups and lowland
villages.

DEPDC works closely with teachers
and village leaders to identify girls most
at risk. Complicity in the trade by
families and village members produces a
major stumbling block as they often
involved in the debt bondage arrangements,
linking families with brothel agents and
benefiting financially from the sale. Staff
incorporate a mix of official
documentation, information, persuasion
and an argument based on the basic rights
of children to convince parents not to sell
their daughter. They persuade them to
reconsider their options for the child
and educate parents about the perils of
the sex industry. Information about
HIV/AIDS brothel conditions, laws,
penalties and other potential dangers
supports their argument. In many
successful cases the decision of the
child to continue their education overrides
the parents desire for monetary gain.

AIMS:

DEPDC aims to prevent children at risk
being forced into the sex industry or child
labour due to outside pressure and a lack
of educational and employment
alternatives. It also aims to improve the
material, social and spiritual quality of
life for these children and their
communities and it encourages the
children to their culture and customs.

PROJECTS:

DEPDC conduct eight distinct projects,
all concerned with children at risk, child
rights, child sexual abuse and forced
labour. DEPDC considers education and
training to the key to providing opportunities
and allowing these girls to reach their full
potential. DEPDC currently runs various
programs supporting, educating and their
communities against the tragedy of child
prostitution and risks oF HIV infection.
DEPDC operates on the belief that through
the financial and moral support of young
women to remain in school or to be trained
for alternative employment the material
and spiritual quality of their lives and
of their communities can be improved.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

DEPDC is an independent organisation with
no religious or government affiliations which
relies on grants and donations to continue its
work. You can donate to DEPDC by:

The Development and Education Programme for
Daughters and Communities has been a member
of the Coalition Against Prostitution & Child
Abuse in Thailand (CAPCAT) since April 1996.

CAPCAT, begun in September 1994, is a non-
profit, non-governmental, secular volunteer
organization that provides Internet services,
promotion and fund-raising support for
organizations in Thailand fighting prostitution
and the abuse of children through labor and
prostitution. Visit our website at:
http://www.capcat.ksc.net